The well-known game of billiards is played on a game table having a rectangular playing surface with rebound rails positioned about the periphery thereof; ball-receiving receptacles or pockets are disposed at the four enclosing corners of the game surface and mid-length of the elongate side rails.
Although this simple arrangement of parts and the game played with such parts has met with great commercial success over the years, inventors have undertaken to improve upon the game and game apparatus and have created numerous new games and new playing devices, all of which are intended to increase the pleasure derived from the games by both players and spectators.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,844,457 to Webster shows an "L"-shaped playing surface, U.S. Pat. No. 4,294,449 to Shaw shows a diamond-shaped playing surface, U.S. Pat. No. 4,834,384 to Cortesi shows a long table having an enlarged or bulbous end, and so on.
Cruciform shapes appear in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,985,355 to Shoemaker, 2,462,526 to McNair and 1,502,607 to Wright.
Despite the new shapes and game rules that have been created in an effort to make billiards-type games more stimulating, the new games have retained many important characteristics of the original game. Specifically, the new games still require the player to hit a ball into a pocket by using a cue ball and a cue stick. If the player misses the shot, play moves to another player. If the player is presented with a substantially unmakable shot, he or she has no recourse but to attempt the shot anyway. This drawback to the enjoyment of the various games has hindered development of billiard-type games, but the prior art, considered as a whole, neither teaches nor suggests how the shortcomings of the art might be overcome.